Founder Member Collaboration: Diverse & Equal and Nexer
Bringing together tech skills and experience
Bringing members together is a particular source of joy at the Responsible Tech Collective. The collaboration between Diverse & Equal and Nexer Digital was born from a very specific desire to recruit a more diverse team at Nexer and the experience and skills to match that Diverse & Equal could provide.
In conversation with Annette Joseph MBE, Founder of Diverse & Equal and Hilary Stephenson, Founder of Nexer Digital, we talk about how the project developed, its goals and what might it mean for the people involved? It’s worth highlighting that if you are looking to recruit, there is a group of highly skilled and talented people about to emerge from the bootcamp, please get in touch with Diverse & Equal to learn more. And ultimately, for this joint investment to deliver the most impact, both Nexer and Diverse & Equal call upon those commissioning and procuring digital services to place higher value on diverse delivery teams. That will help ensure these brilliant people get the chance to deliver meaningful work when they graduate.
Diversifying recruitment in the technology sector
Before we delve into the partnership, I ask about the two organisations founded by these impressive humans.
Diverse & Equal is changing the narrative around diversity and inclusion, increasing awareness, and retraining talented adults from Black and under-represented backgrounds to have fulfilling careers in the tech industry.
Nexer designs digital products and services that help people to live and work better. Inclusivity is at the very core of their business and as Hilary says:
“I was seeing through traditional recruitment channels that we weren’t getting a good variety and diversity in the candidates that might come and design products and services and obviously we want to be as representative of the user base as possible.”
Hilary Stephenson @ Nexer
What’s clear is that Annette is very selective about the organisations who she’ll partner with and firm that a project can never be a ‘box ticking exercise’.
“There’s quite a lot of performative talk around ethnic diversity especially. The work we do flips the narrative of “right thing to do” and box-ticking by showcasing excellent talent from diverse backgrounds — demonstrating the tangible benefits of diversity and how to unlock them with inclusion.”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
Looking at it from the point of view of the employee, Annette goes on to share why she is highly selective with the businesses who Diverse & Equal work with.
“What happens, and our research has shown this, is that many times, diverse people get employed, go into the industry, have horrendous experiences and then end up leaving.
My main goal with the people that we train, most of all is to empower them to unleash their excellence into careers where they can thrive. I want people to bounce out of bed, excited to go to work each morning.”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
The goal is to unleash people’s excellence in tech
“There are so many people who have valuable life experience, working in roles they hate. For me it is all about taking that excellence and redirecting it, so that they can help to create the products and services for the general public and for the future with organisations like Nexer.”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
The bootcamp model has been overseen by Annette. The first bootcamp was born from working at the Co-op and Annette’s desire to unleash the talent that was already in the workforce, rather than recruiting new people into digital roles.
Rather than finding the digital skills and needing to induct new recruits into the Co-op, she created and trialled a pilot, in her own time, to build digital skills in a highly experienced and already inducted group of current employees.
“We look at behaviours and capability, not tech or design experience”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
12 week bootcamp
Diverse & Equal is now on their third cohort and fourth iteration of the bootcamp. The first iteration of the bootcamp was in 2017 when Annette was at the Co-op.
Typically when people talk about agile training, digital skills and tech careers we might think of graduates. In this model, the new employee enters a job with digital skills, but needs to be inducted.
Conversely, in Annette’s model people with skills relating to their industry, job, or employers are upskilled in digital, turning the process on it’s head. Once they have these new skills, there is no need for a long induction and their previous knowledge can give the person a head start.
“The first project I was given when I started working in digital services [at the Co-op] was digital recruitment, we had the remit to hire 100 people into digital. […] Every week I could see new people coming in, but there were 2000 people in the building, and I thought, ‘there’s got to be a way to retrain people who are already here?’ I remember being told ‘you can’t train agile — it has to be experienced’, so I started thinking about how training might work’.”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
Five years later, Annette has clearly show that you can train agile.
Diverse & Equal’s 12-week Agile Bootcamp gives participants theory and practice behind six main disciplines in user-centred product and service design:
“This approach is exactly what we wanted. We see ableist views, we see ageist views, we see people making assumptions and boxing people off. We wanted to blow this apart a little bit […] to show people we can can bring richer experience into research and design activities.”
Hilary Stephenson @ Nexer
Bootcamp next steps: mentoring phase
The plan is that Nexer will go into a mentoring phase. Pairing people in the bootcamp group with people who are employed by Nexer.
Nexer has made the investment in sponsoring the bootcamp. The plan is to hire those who are the right fit, from the point of view of Nexer and the candidate (some people are already in jobs for example).
“It feels really positive so far […]. My biggest challenge is finding good opportunities for them to work in projects.”
Hilary Stephenson @ Nexer
Hilary makes the point that they are already integrated into the business. The participants have already formed a really good working relationship with each other and with the Nexer employees. It’s heartening to hear how both skills and relationships have been integral to the bootcamp.
Opportunities in the technology industry
“Threaded throughout the entire bootcamp is this maturity of person, making sure that we output really mature, really emotionally intelligent, really reflective professionals — who are not just highly capable practitioners, but also great team mates. People who understand what it means to work as part of the team, really good collaborators.”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
Annette goes on to bring in the wider context of the tech industry where the skills gap is enormous and the talent pool can feel small, making it difficult to retain people. In the tech industry it can make sense for employees to move jobs frequently in order to meet the pay aspirations that are possible from experience in the sector.
“If you invest in people’s future, you treat them right and pay them properly, they will stay.”
Annette Joseph MBE @ Diverse & Equal
Consider the more cost effective route of onboarding someone with less digital experience, but more life experience and experiences in other industries.
Are you interested in furthering this conversation?
Call to action for the technology sector. If you are hiring, consider approaching Annette Joseph MBE and Hilary Stephenson with a job link to share to the bootcamp attendees.
Are you interested in running a tech bootcamp? Visit the Diverse & Equal’s website to find out more.
Thank you to Annette Joseph MBE and Hilary Stephenson for your insight into how a partnership can work to diversify recruitment in the technology sector and allow people to unleash their excellence at work. Join us over on LinkedIn and Twitter to share your comments and build on the conversation around facilitating inclusion, teaching skills and building working relationships.
